Monday, December 31, 2012

Last year about this time I was trying to decide whether this was the year I would check "Do a 365 Project" off of my bucket list. As you can tell I decided to take on this project in 2012 and I am officially done. I wanted to do this to learn different aspects of photography and improve my skills, such as lighting and post processing. I still have much to learn but I can honestly say that I have learned more than I could have imagined as this past year unfolded.Over this past year I have taken 4987 photographs, which means I averaged about 14 photos per day. I would like to give a big thanks to everyone for all their support throughout this year. An even bigger thanks to Jim for some of his guest posts, pushing me to be more creative, and helping me throughout the year learning Lightroom and Photoshop. I utilized Jim's 365 Project from 2009 for inspiration and ideas when I was too tired to think. Lastly, a big shout out to Sue, Jonah, and Harper for their patience and being my subjects when I was out of ideas. Over this past week I have reviewed all of my posts and it is quite amazing, uncanny actually, as I recall each photograph and what was happening on that day. Some days were good and some not so good, and all those memories come flooding back. There were passings, relocations, weddings, family get togethers, vacations, holidays, and everything in between.So the photo for today is my final self portrait. I have done three of these on days 122, 244, and now 366. I hope everyone has enjoyed this as much as I did. I won’t be posting on this blog anymore, so if you would like to continue to follow me or my future projects, then you should check out the links below. See you around the interwebs.

Sunday, December 30, 2012

So I have had this idea in my head for a few weeks and if this was a normal 365 Project it would be the last photo of the year. However, since this is a leap year there will be one more photograph. For this photograph I took three separate shots and merged them together in Photoshop. Jonah thought it was really funny that he is now a triplet. One more to go!

Saturday, December 29, 2012

Based on my last two photos you probably thought I was going to do something related to the number three. Well, you would have been right, but dad was in a car accident yesterday. I spent most of the day at the hospital hanging out with him, talking and watching football. When I got home it was dark and I decided to grab my camera and do some long exposure photographs of Oakmont. This one is my favorite. I took this from the Allegheny River Boulevard sidewalk by the clock tower looking towards Allegheny River Avenue. Only two photos to go!

Friday, December 28, 2012

My first visit to Calvary Camp was Family Camp I in 2002. This is when the cabins were the old style that you see in the photo. Sue and her family have stayed in cabin #4 every family camp session they have attended. During the years after 2002, camp started a project to replace the cabins with a more modern style. The year that cabin #4 was set to be retired, I requested that Tim send the cabin number to me. He did and I had it framed along with a photo that Sue had of the old cabin line. It is hanging in our house as a reminder of the old cabin and all the good times that were had. Since the rebuilding of all the cabins they renumbered them and now we stay in #14.

Thursday, December 27, 2012

The photo for today is actually inspired by Jim's 365 Project he did a few years back (Jim's 365th Day Photo Link). His last photo for his project was a self portrait of him leaning against the dice. Counting this photo there are five photos left for the year, so the #5 is in white and the red numbers are my countdown.

To achieve this look I took a macro photo of the dice, and then a portrait of Jonah reaching up to touch the top of the "pretend" dice. After I had the two photos, I merged them in Photoshop and shrunk Jonah down to size. He actually thinks the dice are giant since he is the same size.

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

On our way home from West Virginia today it started to snow. When we finally arrived home it started getting really bad out and several roads were being closed. Jonah and I went out and cleared the driveway and front sidewalks. After we were done, I ran out with a tripod and setup in the middle of the road to take multiple exposures for the HDR image.

Every year after we finish Christmas morning at our house with the kids, we hop in the car and head to my mom's house for the rest of the day. I am the oldest of 14, and days like Christmas, when we are pretty much all together, get very chaotic. We are generally never all in the same place at the same time and this year was no exception. However, we did have record turnout 11 of 14 were there and we decided we had to take family photos. The top photo is mom and Gary, with all the kids. The middle photo is the out-laws (significant others), and the final photo is all of the grandkids. Missing from the top photo are Pete, Anna, and Josh. Missing from the middle photo are Dejan's wife (Ivana), Pete's girlfriend (Ivana), Anna's boyfriend (Jimmy), and Josh's wife (April). There are three missing in the last photo, Layla (Josh's daughter), Devin (Chili's son), and Logan (Zach's son). I think I captured that correctly and if I did't I will update it once someone corrects me. The day was total chaos and a blast catching up with everyone.

Monday, December 24, 2012

Today we celebrated Christmas with Pat, Karen, Matt, and Nora. Jonah opened up a set of roller blades and wanted to start learning right away. We spent about an hour outside and he actually did really well for his first time out. In case you are counting there are seven photos remaining.

Sunday, December 23, 2012

Today we made and iced some sugar cookies for Santa. I figured I would take a photo of the finished product and I actually did, but then Harper decided she needed to take some photos of the cookies. So she wound up being my photograph for today.

Saturday, December 22, 2012

Today Harper had her 2nd ever haircut so it was a pretty big deal. Before the haircut, which was scheduled just after nap, she was less than enthused. After the haircut, she was jumping with joy and filled with sugar (lollipop).

Friday, December 21, 2012

I have a feeling the Myans were right! This morning the clouds had a menacing look to them, so I took a few photos to create an HDR image. While I was doing that I happened to capture a meteor falling on the block behind our house. Happy End of Days!

Thursday, December 20, 2012

A fellow photographer that is participating in her own 365 Project took a photo of her needle-point stocking last night and that is my inspiration for today.

When I was born, my grandma made me a stocking (far left). When I started dating Sue, I found out that her mum made her a stocking (far right). When Jonah was born, my mom his grandma continued the tradition and made him a stocking, and then again when Harper was born. The stockings are one of my favorite decorations.

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

One of the photos I had planned on doing months ago but forgot was a photograph of smoke. I remembered about my plans after seeing a photo of birthday candle that had just be blown out. I always love these shots for the random things you might see in them.

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

After school today Harper was coloring at the kitchen counter and announced to me that it was time for her and baby to have their picture taken. She requested I get my camera and take some photos. Considering I had no plans for a photo today and was going to wing-it, I was glad Harper stepped up to help me out. I have thirteen more photos to take / post and most are already planned out conceptually.

Monday, December 17, 2012

A couple of weeks ago Jim gave me a few pieces of movie film strip for some macro shots. The pieces he gave me were from a movie called "The Chronicles Of: Narnia The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe." He received them from a friend of his that used to work at a movie theater. Jim also provided a photograph (below) from the same movie, and provided an explanation about the anatomy of the film strip.

From Jim: "35mm film print frames. At far left and far right, outside of the KS-size perforations, is the SDDS soundtrack as an image of a digital signal. Between the perforations is the Dolby Digital soundtrack (note the tiny Dolby "Double D" logo in the center of each area.) To the right of this is the stereophonic analogue soundtrack, optically recorded as waveforms containing the audio signals for the left and right audio channels. In the center is the anamorphic picture. Anamorphic is a technique of shooting widescreen picture on a standard 35mm film. The anamorphic projector stretches the image to widescreen format."

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Today was Christmas morning at dad's house. Harper was trying to move her bag of presents, and after trying to lift it she decided it would be better just to sit down and open them at this spot. Everyone had a great time!

Every year we celebrate Christmas with my dad, step-mom, and little brother Seth a couple weeks early. Over the years my dad has accumulated quite the model train set and recently he has been setting them up for everyone to enjoy. I was able to get this shot while Seth was showing Jonah how to operate the controls and blow the whistle.

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Today was Sue's birthday, you can ask her which one. The kids and I took her out to dinner, came home had some cake, and then opened up some presents. I told her yesterday that she would be the photo for today so she was prepared and a good sport about it. Happy Birthday Sue!

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

I was trying to come up with something creative for 12.12.12, and due to this lack of creativity I went to my list of things I want to photography before the end of the year. This is a stained glass window that is in the front of our house. This was originally much larger and given to us by dad and Pam. We had it resized to fit a square window on our staircase landing and it looks great in that space. I lit the window from the outside and snapped off some photos while sitting on the stairs.

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

I have been waiting for the tree to be up to do one of these shots. It is a long exposure and during the exposure you adjust the zoom to get the light trails. It reminds me of Star Wars when they would make the jump to the next star system.

Monday, December 10, 2012

Everyone has heard the saying "Oil and water don't mix." Today's photo is inspired by this saying, so I mixed a little olive oil and some water, placed the drinking glass on top of a colorful background, and snapped some photos. Then a little post processing to clean it up, add some contrast, and there you have it, my version of an "Oil and Water" abstract. I think I am going to re-size this one and Day 194 to use as wallpaper for my PC screens at work.

Sunday, December 9, 2012

I was searching for creative ideas to execute during the last days of this project and Jim suggested that I change my bokeh. I had never heard of that, so I searched and found this link. It is a pretty easy process and I decided to do a star as the backdrop for this little wooden Nativity. I told Jim that I was posting this today and he sent me an example he did which I posted below.

Saturday, December 8, 2012

Today we went to see Santa at Phipps. This is Harper waiting in line and watching the process as the other kids took their turns. Unfortunately, when it was her turn she declined to sit on Santa's lap and would only go near him for the full family photo.

Thursday, December 6, 2012

I am what they call a "Piler." Meaning that I have a pile of things here and a pile of things there. It is my way of organizing my life. Sue encourages me to clean up my piles, as she is anti-pile. The shot for tonight is staged and very representative of the ever changing pile of camera gear that has been on the table behind our couch. I took this to thank Sue for her patience during my year long quest and wanted to remind her that there are only 25 days remaining.

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Tonight was Jonah's Christmas Show at school. His class represented the reindeer and all the kids sang some songs and looked like little angels. Next year we will show up a little earlier to get a better seat a little higher up.

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

My mom bought the kids an Advent Calendar several years ago and it is not your normal calendar. It is actually a log cabin house that we hide candy in each night and the kids try to find the correct day. It is a major hit and is our standard after dinner activity.

Monday, December 3, 2012

Our Elf on a Shelf showed up on Saturday. Jonah named him Ernie several years back and is very excited to locate him each morning. Ernie is always lurking in the shadows watching the kids. I took a portrait of Ernie and it took a couple tries to get the lighting the way I wanted it. I think Ernie is "shifty" looking and don't trust him one bit.

Today was a brew day and a seasonal beer was the recipe of the day. This part of the process is called sparging, in which very hot water is poured through the grains and then captured in our kettle to boil in a later step. If you would like to see how the overall process looks for our brew club, then check out Day 119/366.

Saturday, December 1, 2012

Today was Sue's annual go shopping until you drop day preparing for Christmas and I take the kids for the day. Since we had really nice weather (50 degrees), the kids and I walked to the library and then had lunch at Panera. While they were checking out the books, I was taking some bracketed photos that I could turn into an HDR image. This is the one I chose, which is the kids side of the library.